Howard Connell, managing director of Georgia Tech’s new Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, points to the panel of presenters at the Center’s inaugural event as an example of how it plans to address the systemic complexities of sustainability.

At that event last summer, the CEOs of Coca-Cola Enterprises, aluminum company Novelis, and Walmart, as well as top administrators for the Environmental Defense Fund and the EPA, spoke candidly with an audience of nearly 200 students, faculty and industry members.

“These are the people who create one of the world’s leading consumer products, who create its packaging, and who sell it,” Connell noted. “Not to mention, the heads of the Environmental Defense Fund and the EPA, who have come to be viewed as essential partners in sustainability efforts. They are all interested in incorporating sustainability into the production, distribution and recycling of Coca-Cola products.”